Telegram to Hold a Partial Public Sale via Liquid Crypto Exchange

Messaging app giant Telegram’s gram token, previously sold to accredited investors in one of the bigger ICOs of 2018, is finally going on public sale, a press release confirmed on June 11th.

According to the news, a limited sale of the gram token will be hosted by cryptocurrency exchange Liquid from July 10th.

The offering comes before a full public sale planned for October. However no further details about the sale have been disclosed to the public. The sale will ensue via Gram Asia, which claims to be the largest holder of gram tokens.

Prior to this, grams have been sold only to accredited investors in Telegram’s massive two-phase private initial coin offering (ICO) back in February and March of 2018, which subsequently raised around $1.7 billion for its Telegram Open Network (TON) project and was by far the largest fundraise made via a crypto token offering.

The Telegram Open Network (TON) was an ambitious blockchain project with the goal to decentralize multiple facets of digital communication, varying from file sharing to browsing to transactions.

According to the gram sale page on Liquid’s official website:

“TON brings speed and scalability to a multi-blockchain architecture that addresses the need for minimal transaction times and airtight security.”

Liquid CEO Mike Kayamori has stated in the press release that:

“We share the vision for a more secure and open value transfer system in order to enable the mainstream adoption of cryptocurrencies.”

He further added that the TON blockchain infrastructure could help boost Telegram’s current capacity as well as efficiency as a peer to peer network of value, with the launch of their cryptocurrency light wallets for Telegram’s highly engaged user base.

Meanwhile, the sale is open to all investors globally; however it excludes several nations including the U.S. and its territories as well as Japan, most likely due to regulatory reasons that the token could be considered a security within those jurisdictions.

Investors interested in participating in the sale on the Liquid platform can purchase grams with either U.S. dollars or the USDC stablecoin. According to the official website, a full token launch is expected at the end of October.

Notably, any gram tokens sold in the upcoming offering will not be immediately tradeable.

“The tokens being sold will not be released until after TON goes live (mainnet release), in accordance with the delivery schedule. Purchasers will not be able to transfer, withdraw, or trade the Grams before they are released.”

This news comes roughly two weeks after Telegram released a testnet version of the TON client, which itself follows an extensive development process and the Q3 launch date.

As of press time, Telegram has not released any official comments regarding the news.